Sean was inside, on the radio to Tom and Oliver. ‘According to the parents they were headed for the ghyll—start there.’ He glanced up as Sally walked into the room. ‘I thought we’d got rid of you.’ He lifted an eyebrow in a silent question and she gave a rueful shrug, trying to look casual.
‘I thought I might hang around here with you. You’re going to need some moral support with the parents. They’ve just arrived and they look as though they need coffee …’ Her voice tailed off under Sean’s steady gaze.
‘Sally.’ His tone was firm as he lounged back in his chair. ‘Just marry the man and stop all this messing around.’
Colour touched her cheeks. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
He sighed wearily and stabbed his fingers through his cropped dark hair. ‘The whole community knows what I mean. At the moment neither you nor Tom have your mind on the job in hand and I don’t want distracted people out there on the fells. Sort it out. Say yes to the guy, Sally. Then Tom will stop drinking my whiskey and you’ll stop staring at me like a puppy worried that his master won’t come home.’
Sally bristled. ‘He isn’t my master.’
‘But you’re worried he won’t come home.’ Sean’s gaze fixed on hers. ‘Heaven knows, I’m no expert on emotions, but doesn’t that tell
you anything, Sal? The fact that you’re still sitting here in this boring building where nothing is going to happen for hours. Doesn’t that tell you something?’
Yes.
But she didn’t want to hear it. She wanted to ignore it.
She swallowed, aware that Sean was looking at her expectantly.
She gave a helpless shrug, knowing that denial was a waste of time. ‘All right! I know I love Tom,’ she said finally, ‘but I’m scared, Sean. Really terrified—and too scared to risk it all again. Do you have any idea what it was like? Trying to live without him?’
‘Seems to me that you’re living without him at the moment anyway, so how much worse could it get, Sally?’ He let out a long breath and pulled a face. ‘Let’s look at it another way. You were the bravest kid I ever knew. When you were thirteen, Tom and I used to bawl at you to use a rope, and every time we turned round you’d be up that rock-face with a grin on your face and absolutely nothing holding you there except your fingers, your feet and your incredible determination. What’s happened to those guts, Sally?’
Her lips felt stiff. ‘I still free climb.’
He nodded. ‘I know you do. So that’s still one risk you’re prepared to take. What about other risks? Why are some risks worth taking while others aren’t? With Tom you’re too wary to even put a foot on the rock-face.’
She couldn’t answer him, shaken by the analogy that he’d used.
She’d never thought of herself as a coward.
Sean ran a hand over the back of his neck. ‘Why do you climb?’
‘Because I love it. Because I can’t not climb.’
‘And if you fell one day?’ He looked at her. ‘Would you still climb?’
She frowned and then nodded. ‘Yes. Of course I would. It’s a part of me. Of who I am.’
‘And so is Tom. And that’s why you’ll never be happy unless you’re with him.’ Sean glanced at the clock and made a move towards the door. ‘Enough psychology. It isn’t exactly my forte, but when I see two people I love making a mess of things, I have to interfere. That’s what comes of being married to my wife for so many years. And now I need to talk to the families of those children and you need to spend some time facing up to the truth, Sally. Don’t punish him for one mistake. You fell once, but your love for him is still there. You can’t live without Tom. He’s every bit as much a part of you as your climbing. And at some point you’re going to have to get back on that rock-face or you’ll have wasted your life by being too afraid to go after the one thing you want.’
He walked quietly out of the room and closed the door behind him, leaving her staring after him in silence, her thoughts clearer than they’d been for a long time.
* * *
It was the longest evening of Sally’s life and for the first time she understood how it must feel to be a relative with a loved one lost on the mountain.
Tom was a skilled mountaineer and he wasn’t lost.
But for some reason she still couldn’t stop worrying.
And suddenly she knew Sean was right. Tom was as much a part of her as her climbing. And she couldn’t live without him.
Sean was prowling anxiously around the base, and when the radio crackled to life he dived for it, expecting to hear Tom’s voice.
It was Oliver, and even though his voice crackled and broke up periodically, they could hear the tension in his voice.